It seems like we blew through Vandread pretty quickly, especially with this new review schedule that ive been on. But it’s been an eventful ride so far and despite some pretty nasty hiccups…actually really bad, like infuriatingly bad ones, the First Season ends with a massive showdown, some new clues as to the true extent of the Aliens reach and some little crumbs to get people excited for Season Two, which I’ll be covering later this year. But first things first, the finale.
We haven’t been given a proper name for the Aliens so for now, I’m just going to call them The Harvest, which is fitting. We got to meet two separate factions of Humans, both with Male and Female cohabitation, and get to know a little more about The Harvests MO. As you might’ve guessed, The Harvest are into…ill say collecting because otherwise I’ll just say “Harvest” a lot…collecting vital human organs, especially reproductive ones. One Human colony, Anpathos, was secretly established as a Harvest collection ground with its population believing they were being blessed by the arrival of a God or something like that. In a way, these things kind of remind me of The Reapers from Mass Effect, appearing only once every few dozen millenia to harvest sentient life before disappearing back to dark space. But not all of Humanity is like the blind zealots of Anpathos. No, Hibiki discovered another Human fleet of Men and Women making a desperate last stand against an oncoming Harvest mothership. Poor Hibiki. He gets a true glimpse at the happiness that comes from Men and Women working together and not trying to kill one another…and they all die horrible deaths trying to protect him. Oh and did I mention The Harvest apparently come from Earth? That’s something worth exploring in Season Two.
Given this is Vandread, it wouldn’t be a life or death situation without some stupid situation to throw everything off the rails. I get that the hormone fueled tension between the guys and girls of the Nirvana is supposed to be played mostly for laughs. But Parfait, the pesky would be Doctor/Social Media stalker, accidentally starting a mini mutiny because she was jealous no one remembered her birthday was just stupid. What was more so was that Magno let this all play out, with Hibiki, Bart and Duelo all being locked up and Barnette declaring there would be no more talking with Men. I’m suddenly at a loss because I thought things were going so well and everyone was growing in their own way. And they are. Dita, Meia and Gascogne were all not on board with this sudden change in policy. And Magno, well I guess you can say she just thought of this as business as usual and let this crap work its way out of everyones system. Were this a stand alone episode, it could have been forgettable enough. But considering a lot of this drama made its way into the pivotal last couple of episodes, I was starting to get miffed with Barnette’s pride and Paiway’s straight up stupidity…and the same for the other random background characters on the Nirvana who are only choosing NOW to start being pissed about three men on a predominantly female crewed ship.
At the heart of all this chaos was Hibiki and he really showed how far he’s come since the loud moth would be Space Naruto I labeled him in the beginning. His take charge attitude shined through as well as his more quiet, methodical, tactical side. Hibiki was a natural born leader and I could see him almost being chosen as Meia’s second in command in combat. Granted, Hibiki had a lot to get him motivated. He saw death first hand. He now knows just how dangerous a Harvest Mothership can be and it wasn’t something that could simply be blasted away (as much as Barnette wanted it to be). Hibiki wasn’t about to let his new home be destroyed so easily. The end result was a stunning and awesome escape from a dangerous planet and the subsequent blasting away of a Harvest Mothership with Hibiki employing Dita, Meia and Jura’s Dreads in various fashions. Oh and Hibiki and Jura combined their mechs at last and…the end result is about as impressive as Hibiki’s actual tenuous connection to Jura. In other words, it’s the weakest of the three combos. Jura whines way too much and doesn’t have the same kind of…anything with Hibiki that Dita and Meia both share. If anything her clear relationship with Barnette is way more interesting.
I should note that before the showdown with the Harvest Mothership, we got a random Christmas episode. This could have been something truly forgettable, especially when you can add this to the increasingly long list of holidays and customs not shared between the Men and Women of Taraak. Plus when you see the crap Paiway and Barnette pull during their mini mutiny, it almost feels pointless to have this in here. But it was worth it to see the character progressions of Hibiki, Meia, Bart, Duelo, BC and Parfait. Duelo painted a pretty portrait for Parfait as a gift; Bart tried to put the moves on BC; and Hibiki and Meia unexpectedly teamed up to get a gift for the crew, albeit under different circumstances. All this and we got to see Magno dress up as Santa. It’s silly but this was probably the last bit of light hearted fun before the darker finale, so I’ll allow it.
Like I said, this isn’t the end by a long shot. So naturally, there’s a few dangling threads. The Nirvana is only about half way home but their homeworlds don’t seem interested in the threat of the Harvest. We saw the probes launched way back when from the Nirvana reach Taraak and Mejere but their respective leaders, Grandpa and Grandma, deleted the data…oh my God this whole Male Vs Female war had better not have been started because of a stupid lovers quarrel that these two plan to drag out and commit to even with the end of the world knocking on their doors. There’s also the mystery of Labat and Earth. The suave con man returned to rescue Hibiki and admitted he’s selling info on Human colonies to the Harvest just to save his own skin…what an asshat. Just how bad is Earth now? Did it get conquered by the Harvest, Borg Style, and now it wants the rest of Humanity for some nefarious end? Whatever the case, they know now the Nirvana blew up one of their Motherships…so theyre sending five more in to finish the job. That combined with the fact they can make Vandread replicas too means Hibiki, Dita and the others will have their work cut out for them when we come back in a couple of months to Vandread.
So, how was Vandread’s first season? It was…ok. Much like the first season of Full Metal Panic, the drama and character building worked better than the actual humor. Characters who annoyed me at first like Hibiki and Dita slowly grew on me and I’m now rooting for their future romance. The mecha designs were pretty top notch save for the lackluster Vanguard units. The Nirvana, the Dreads and Vandreads all stole the show whenever they were on screen engaging in some pretty well done action sequences, especially for an early 2000s CG Anime (this is one of the better looking Studio Gonzo shows btw). The back and forth battle of the sexes kind of got stale after the first couple of episodes and when that’s supposed to be the backbone of the entire show, that can be problematic. When Vandread took a moment to look past that and focus on the personal and kind of sad backstories of its many protagonists, things started to get better, especially after the halfway mark. It’s not the smoothest beginning but it’s passable and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how things wrap up in Season Two
Vandread receives as 6.5/10, definitely has some humor and character problems in the beginning that slowly get sorted, resulting in a fun nostalgia Anime trip. The crew of the Nirvana will return in Vandread: The Second Stage, coming August 2021 to the Gundam Anime Corner.
No comments:
Post a Comment